The Syndicate Games
by thechinskyguy
Summary: Rocket. Magma. Aqua. Galactic. Plasma. Flare. The six syndicates waged war against the world…and lost. As punishment for their transgressions, four former grunts from each syndicate are forced to compete in The Syndicate Games, a brutal fight to the death that pits grunt against grunt, team against team. The only rule? Only one grunt wins.
1. Prologue

The sounds of whirring blades startled Cynthia awake. She fumbled in the darkness for the Poké Balls on her nightstand, her arm heavy and numb. Not even the hot, adrenaline-laced blood in her veins could keep her from knocking everything on the nightstand over.

She looked out the window and shielded her eyes; two blinding lights blasted through her window. Her bare feet tread over her thin nightgown, which she slipped off just before laying down for the night earlier. She wrapped it around herself and ran out of her bedroom.

"Not those damn Galactics again," she muttered. Her hands slapped the walls blindly until she found the light switch. The roar of the chopper blades grew and echoed against the halls. Cynthia covered her ears and ran for the back door, watching as her haggard reflection stared back at her in the glass.

Her hands threw the door open, and she ran in the dark of her back patio toward her garage. She cursed under her breath; her Poké Balls still lay on her nightstand. If those Galactics found her Garchomp, or Lucario…

The moonlight made her silky nightgown gleam in the night. Anyone with half-blind eyes would see her, exposed and alone, especially anyone who would want to attack her. She hid behind a bush, trembling against the cold March winds. Her frayed, thinning blonde hair whipped every which way, and she tried to keep it straight.

"Cynthia?" a man's voice called.

She froze. The voice wasn't too deep, but still instilled a chilling sense of authority. The voice, cold as steel, washed a cool sense of relief over her. She stood and walked back toward the house.

"Steven?" she called back. "What the hell are you doing?"

A tall, slender shadow appeared from the side of the mansion. In the pale moonlight, Cynthia could make out Steven's short, platinum hair, the gleam of his tidy work suit. A fraction of a grin sparked from his lips. Behind him, the lights on the chopper dimmed, and the blades slowly whirred to a halt.

"I didn't wake you, did I?" Steven chuckled.

Cynthia jogged up to him and punched him in the arm. "I thought it was Team Galactic, you ass! You had me scared half to death!"

Steven ruffled his hair and laughed nervously. "That's my bad. Thought you would like your own personal escort to the –"

"Personal escort?" She asked, leading Steven through the back door into her kitchen. "For what?"

He hopped onto the counter and sighed, swiping a banana off of the counter. "Lance called an emergency League meeting about an hour ago. He was still in Kalos for the offensive, so by the time he called it you would've been dead asleep."

"Whuh?" Cynthia glared at the clock on her stove. 1:03 AM. "I'm surprised that you're not with him. But why'd he call a meeting?"

The chopper lights shone to life again. Steven strode to the front door and flung it open. "Give me a damn minute, will ya?"

Cynthia heard a pilot shout something incohesively as Steven slammed the door shut. "Guy's a pushover," he said. "But anyways, the entire League is being called in by sunrise to discuss transgressions for the Syndicate Alliance." He took a bite out of the banana.

"But the war's not over!" Cynthia protested.

Steven grinned slyly and swallowed his bite of banana. A devious glare shone from his grey eyes.

"You're screwing with me, right?" Cynthia said. "No way! I mean, the offensive wasn't even in full force –"

"They surrendered," Steven said bluntly. "All six of them at once." His grin grew wider as he leapt off of the counter toward the bathroom. "They musta known they were no match for us! Lucky them. . ."

"But. . . but the Kalos offensive. . ." Cynthia trailed.

"Never mind that!" Steven said. "Just get your pokémon and get ready to leave!"

Cynthia felt her legs tremble, her mind spinning in circles. Years of fighting against the Syndicate Alliance…and it just stopped? Was the League really too much for them?

She stumbled back to her bedroom and slipped her faux fur jacket over her nightgown. Her bony fingers could barely grasp her Poké Balls to pocket them. After hopping into a pair of slacks, she held her head in one hand and sighed. The beginnings of a migraine formed in the center of her brain, and she winced.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," she mumbled to herself. "Transgressions?"

"Almost done?" Steven yelled. "We need to hightail it out of here if we wanna make it to the League on time!"

She straightened her hair haphazardly with her hands and found Steven, leaning against the front door, his foot tapping against the floor impatiently. "Yeah, sure," she said, filing past him out the door. The helicopter roared to life again, its blades slicing the wind methodically.

"I could've gotten there myself, you know!" she shouted, climbing into the chopper. "All you had to do was call me!"

Steven smirked and climbed in gracefully, taking the seat across from her. "That, Cynthia, would have been far less exciting!"

* * *

He nudged Cynthia on the shoulder to wake her. "We're almost there," he whispered.

Cynthia stirred and rubbed her eyes, standing to stretch her cramped limbs. Her legs had scrunched against her neck while she slept, and she almost fell back to her knees, they felt that stiff.

"What time is it?" she moaned, glaring at the morning sun blasting through the fish-eyed windows.

"Almost eight AM," Steven said. "Made it to Kanto right on time."

Cynthia leered at the window and groaned. Dozens of reporters and photographers, armed to the teeth with cameras and microphones, crowded against the immaculate landscaping near the League building's entrance. Bright camera flashes reflected off of the building's golden pillars like explosions, only with the clamorous shouts instead of thunderous booms.

"They knew we'd be coming," Steven muttered as ground crews shooed the paparazzi away from the descending chopper. "They always gotta hear from the big shots when so much as a gym leader gets hitched, much less when we win a war."

The helicopter landed abruptly, and Cynthia flung the doors open with a smirk. Her feet didn't even find solid ground before a horde of camera lenses and microphones blocked her vision of the League building's mahogany doors.

"Any comment on the treaty that led to the Syndicate Alliance's surrender?" one reporter shouted, poking a microphone at her face.

"No comment," she muttered. "Everything at this point is up in the air." She strode past the mob effortlessly with a wave of the condescending hand, while Steven wrestled past jumpy teeny boppers, their hands outstretched with pens and notepads.

"They're like animals out there," Steven said when they entered the building. "I think that's the fourth time this year I lost a lock of hair."

Cynthia chuckled, and the massive doors behind them shut with a low thud. The shouts of the reporters outside vanished, and all that she could hear were the hushed whispers from the chamber ahead of her.

"They're probably about to start," Steven said, taking her hand and rushing forward. Cynthia stumbled alongside him, her heels clacking against the tiled floor and echoing across the halls. The marble gargoyle statues that lined the velvet walls glared at her threateningly, like the eyes of Medusa piercing her heart.

She shuddered and walked through the doors, gasping at the sheer size of the conference chamber. Even after countless meetings here, it always made her feel…small. Six rows of long, wooden tables stood from one end of the room to the other. The farthest, on Cynthia's right, was raised on a high platform and faced all of the other rows. The Champion's Panel.

In the center of the five chairs, Lance struggled to keep his eyes awake, his heavy head cradled in the palm of his hand. His dark red hair drooped and sagged like the bags under his darkened eyes. Next to him, Diantha waved curtly, a vague grin on her face.

Steven climbed the stairs up to the platform and took the seat next to Lance. "Looks like almost everyone's here," he said.

Cynthia took the seat on the end, right next to Steven, and gazed at the assembly. All twenty of the Elite Four League members occupied the first row, but only half of the row behind them was filled with the Gym Leaders from Kanto. Misty Waterflower, a young, orange-haired woman of twenty-four, brushed her hair in front of a pocket mirror, her lips pursed in concentration.

The whispers in the chamber seemed to grow by the minute. Cynthia scanned the faces of everyone in the chamber. Some look bored, and even from the other end of the room she could see Olympia yawning.

But she found too many frowns for her own comfort. She could see Maylene's worried, frantic expression just by the movement of her lips. In front of her, Wattson spoke in a hushed, anxious whisper, the intensity of his frown growing and growing.

Steven tapped on Lance's shoulder, and the Indigo League champion shook himself awake. "Settle down, everyone!" he shouted. "We need to begin as quickly as possible."

"But not everyone's here yet!" a man shouted. Cynthia squinted and saw Crasher Wake standing.

"No matter. I'm not one for waiting," Lance said. The whispers slowly died to a simmer, and hundreds of eyes trained themselves on the Champion's panel.

"Good," said Lance, grinning a little. "Now, as I'm sure you've all heard, the Syndicate Alliance signed a treaty proclaiming their surrender. We –"

A score of raucous cheers erupted within the chamber. Lance growled and pounded his fist onto the table. "Settle down!" he cried. "We can celebrate later."

The cheers died as quickly as they began.

"While we haven't discussed full terms of surrender with the heads of the Alliance just yet, today we need to discuss how we can deal with the six syndicates after the fact. I'm sure that each region has different ideas as to how we can go about this, but for the sake of swiftness we should make a decision today."

On the other end of the Champion's Panel, Diantha flagged Lance down. "Where are the enemy forces now?"

"For the time being, any member known to be affiliated with a syndicate is presently held in confinement at detention centers across their respective regions." He paused. "But they're all overflowing as a result, so we need to think of alternative arrangements, and quick."

At first, silence. Each gym leader on the floor exchanged awkward glances with one another, lips twitching and heads frowning.

"Why can't we just keep them locked up?" asked Brock from the second row. "I mean, most of them aren't anything more than common criminals." Behind him, Volkner snuck into the chamber quietly, hurriedly taking his seat with his fellow gym leaders.

"On the long-term, I think that could work," said Alder. "But where the 'ell are we supposed to fit 'em all now?"

From the third row of gym leaders, Brawly jumped out of his seat. "I say we execute every last one of them! Those Magma and Aqua bastards nearly wiped out half of Hoenn, and they don't even make up half of the Syndicate Alliance!"

Brock's face reddened, and he turned to Brawly. "You wanna kill what could be thousands of people? These are human beings we're talking about! Maybe what they did was wrong, but –"

"They deserve it!" Brawly fired back. "I mean, look at what the Rockets were able to do to Kanto, and the Plasmas to Unova!"

The shouts between the two men turned into belligerent rambling. Falkner had to physically separate them a second later when Brawly leapt over the table to tackle Brock.

"Both of you settle down!" Lance ordered with a pointed finger. "I will _not _tolerate disorder." Brock sheepishly returned to his seat, while Brawly grunted and sulked to his.

Cynthia shuddered. "I think Brock is right," she said. "I don't wanna kill any of these people." She turned to Alder, with a faint shadow of a smile. "But we can't really put the grunts of all six syndicates anywhere, at least without spending money on new facilities." Next to her, Steven held his chin in his hand, staring blankly at the ceiling.

"The people should get to vote!" said Marlon. Almost a hundred necks craned to the back of the room. "If we can't decide, then let's let them!"

"Vote between what, life and death?" Karen cried. "The Syndicate Alliance has hurt so many people that the citizens would create a mob mentality against them! They'd be no better than we are right now!"

Four gym leaders all spoke at once, and soon the entire chamber apart from the Champion's Panel blazed with angry shouts and loud, passionate fervor.

Lance and Cynthia only watched, scowling as people rose from their seats to shout others down. Diantha hopelessly screeched for everyone to please, oh pretty please calm down, but no one bothered to even look at her. The ornate walls almost trembled under the heat.

A loud boom startled everyone into silence. An Exploud on top of the Hoenn gym leaders' table huffed and puffed, one of the cannons on its head fuming with smoke.

"Return!" said Norman, and a beam of red light swallowed the Exploud whole. "I'm bringing him out every time shit like this happens, got it?" he said to the others.

"Thank you, Norman," Lance said.

Alder threw his hands into the air. "If we're gonna act like savages when it comes to this, we may as well just let those damn grunts kill each other!"

Steven calmly smiled, his eyes glazed over in a near trance. "That's it, actually."

Cynthia frowned. "Come again?"

He stood. "Let's let, no, let's _make _the grunts from the syndicates kill each other off! Hell, we can even televise it!"

"He's crazy, right?" Misty said. "We can't actually _do _that, can we?"

Lance said nothing, instead turning slowly to Steven. "Elaborate," he drawled.

"I think this could work for everyone here," he said. "See, I don't think we should kill all of them. But if we make a few kill each other off, we can scare any rebels into submission. It's almost like we're ending war altogether!"

"By making people kill each other?" Cynthia cried. "This is a terrible idea!"

"I think it sounds interesting," Brawly muttered. "As long as we're telling them to fuck off some way, somehow, then I'm down."

Steven nodded and turned to Cynthia. "Wouldn't you wanna get some payback against those Galactic scum?

"Yes, but not like this! And your plan doesn't even solve the overpopulation in the detention centers!"

The Hoenn champion paused. "It's television, Cynthia. People are gonna eat this up like it's a day at the races. And you know what the people do with sports? They bet _money_, Cynthia." His arms outstretched to point to the entire chamber. "And I think we all know what we can spend that money on."

Cynthia sputtered in disbelief. "I refuse to stand behind this! Lance, you're not gonna think of _allowing _this atrocity, are you?"

The dragon master shrugged and yawned. "You have to admit, he's kinda right."

She gulped and scanned the crowd. A few appeared in deep thought, as if the idea of young adults killing each other off was too complex for a gym leader's mind. But more of them, too many of them, nodded or voiced their agreement.

"So what, we just let a dozen or so of these guys off each other and call it a day?" Viola said.

"No," Steven said, shaking his head slowly. "Let's make it two dozen. And even then… every year. Every year, we pick twenty four of those Alliance bastards and throw them into a death trap."

"You're mental!" Cynthia cried to Steven. "They surrendered with hardly a fight, and you're gonna do _this _to them?"

He said nothing, staring at Cynthia curtly. Then, he grinned devilishly and faced the rest of the Champion's Panel. "One of them lives."

An eerie calm swept over the chamber. No one spoke, no one argued. For a few seconds, the whole earth stood still.

Lance cleared his throat. "You mean there's gonna be a winner? Like a game?"

"Exactly," said Steven. "Make it fun for the people watching on TV, deciding who's gonna make it and who won't! It's a win-win for everyone!" He pointed to Brawly. "People who want these guys dead get to see them die, but it's not like we're killing all of them!"

"How are we gonna be able to pay for something like this?" shouted Blaine as he stood. "The League is already in massive debt because of the war! Where the hell are we supposed to get funding for this?" He spoke with a boiling, ancient anger, like it had bubbled over the course of the meeting. His face grew redder than a beet, his burly mustache twitching erratically.

"Well, you're right," Steven said, awkwardly motioning to Blaine, "we're gonna be in the hole for a while. But we can make so much money off of these games that we'll be drowning in money in a decade, tops! It can't hurt to be in debt for a little while, right?"

Blaine sighed. "I just don't think it's practical, is all."

"I'm all ears for any other ideas you might have!" Steven said. Blaine stared him down for a second with tense, fiery eyes before sighing again, taking his seat.

Lance slowly nodded. "All in objection to Steven's proposition, say nay."

Cynthia shouted "Nay!" and stood, her hand raised into the air. An awkward silence followed; not a single person had opened their mouths.

Steven snickered. "And all those in favor?" he asked. "A simple show of hands will suffice."

Every person in the room, from the Champion's Panel to the very back of the room, raised their hand to the ceiling, a few with polite, delicate smiles. Cynthia stood on tiptoes to find someone, _anyone_, who agreed with her.

No one did.

"It's settled, then," Lance said, standing up. "Steven, I'm leaving you to head the games. No one is to find out about this until the time is right. You have three months, understood?"

Steven grinned and shook Lance's hand. "You've got it, Luxforde. You're not gonna regret this, I swear."

One by one, the gym leaders began to file silently out of the chamber, mumbling to one another excitedly. Cynthia shrunk into her seat, her mind racing violently. Steven moved past her without a word, but she could see the thin, vicious smile under his stone-cold façade.

She took a breath and struggled to accept the unacceptable: the Games were on.


	2. The Rockets and the Galactics

_Liam Kelly – Team Rocket_

One of the things I've always feared most is the darkness that befalls me when I'm trying to fall asleep with eyes wide open. It's so dark that I may as well have them glued shut. I can tell myself all I want that my eyes are open, but my mind won't let me think that so easily. A certain insanity ensues – are my eyes open? Or shut? Am I awake, staring at the darkness of my cell, or at my own personal darkness inside of my eyelids? Am I one with the darkness, or have I isolated myself from it?

Being locked in here is that feeling of oblivion times a hundred.

I wonder if my cell mates are thinking the same thing. I wonder if they're thinking at all.

It's the middle of the night – two, maybe three in the morning. I should be fast asleep in my cozy little cot. As if that's even possible.

Two shadows appear on the other end of the barred doors, and a pair of hands undo the padlock. A flashlight shines in my eyes like the burning midday sun.

But that's okay. I didn't want to sleep anyways.

"The fuck?" one of my cellmates mumbles.

One of the shadows steps forward and towers over me. I'm still under my scratchy covers, but even then I'm curling in fright.

"Liam Kelly?" he mumbles.

"Y-y-yeah?" My steepened pitch sounds like an injured kitten: weak, frail.

Without response, a beefy, calloused hand yanks at my hair and drags me away. He does it with enough force to nearly rip my scalp off, and I shriek in pain. The next three blocks of cells stir from their sleep as I pass them …or, as the guards pass them with their fragile cargo in tow.

I don't know how many hallways they take me through, or why. No one else is being dragged around by the prison guards, not that I'm taking time to look around. My feet trip over one another in the darkness, and the bigger guard has to reposition his hand against my temple to lug me efficiently. I'm positive that my bare feet and my shaggy dark hair are a crimson red now.

The cement floor under me turns to tile, and the pitch-black hallways brighten from the ceiling. The guard releases his grip, but before I can rub my head I'm thrown into a corner of the room. My back slams into the drywall without so much as a whimper, but my bones creak upon impact.

"Don't move," a guard growls. I'm on all fours, panting and groaning from the ache in my spine, and they both leave without a word, closing the door behind them and locking it from the outside.

There isn't much to this room – it's too big to be a broom closet, but too small for anything else besides a break room.

Well, a break room without a coffee maker, or tables, or chairs.

The physical exhaustion finally fades after I run out of breath, and then the mental panic sets in – locked in this room, with no idea where I'm at or why.

Just like the past three months. Except I'm alone now.

Another few minutes pass, and the door opens again. I start for it before I see another kid being pushed in. The guards give him the same warning, and then we're left to bask in our silence.

If I hadn't known better, I would've thought someone set a mirror in front of me. This man is a little more built than me, and a little taller, too, but other than that we're almost twins. Same head of moppy black hair, same baggy grey eyes. Same animosity toward everything and everyone around them.

"What're you in here for?" I ask, with a dashing hope that he knows why.

He only grunts and wanders off to another corner of the room. I open my mouth to try and coax him into conversation, but a mammoth yawn escapes me instead. Closing my eyes, I decide that I'm not in the mood for confrontation.

In that brief moment before I slip into slumber, an avalanche of worry cascades over where I sit. A whole three months of waiting in that moldy cell, and for what? Relocation? Execution in the dead of night? Something worse?

I can't decide what might happen before a loud _slam _jolts me from the sleep I never enjoyed. This kid thinks that head-butting the locked door is a good idea, even after I yell for him to stop.

"Can't make me do shit," he mutters. After the fourth head-butt, he massages his temple tensely and slumps back against the wall.

"I knew that wouldn't work," I said, wringing my hands together.

The man shrugs. "Not trying leads to failure. Trying…well, that's a different story." He forces a smile that we both know isn't genuine. "Name's Zeo Arbravio."

"Liam."

There's another drawn out silence that follows. We're both trying not to acknowledge each other too warmly. I don't even know if he's a Rocket like me, or was one. The cracking of his knuckles isn't enough to diffuse the tension.

"So you know why we're in here?" he says.

"Must be pretty damn important if they woke us up for it."

I shoot him a quick, worried glance. "You don't think they're gonna execute us, are they?"

"Who, the wardens?" He scoffs and tries to hold back laughter, failing. "They coulda done that three months ago if they needed to. Or even during the war."

"But figure if they really wanted to wait until now to kill us, they'd abduct us during the night where no one else is awake to see it happen!" My heart pounds at the idea. "Yeah, they'll just pick us off one by one until we're all dead, man! That's what's –"

"Shut up!" Zeo barks. "If we've been abducted, or kidnapped, or whatever, it means we're being _moved _somewhere. That's the only reason why people get abducted in the first place. For all we know, it's just to another prison somewhere."

He grins. "About time, too. I could use some more space."

The door opens again before I can respond, and a third body falls through the doorway. The guards outside don't even give the warning; they're in and out in two seconds.

It's a girl this time. She skitters her way onto her feet and backs into the corner opposite me. "The hell do you guys want with me?" she cries.

Zeo and I both hold our hands up in surrender. "We're in the same spot as you, lady!"

"Whatever," she shoots, curling her arms around her. Goosebumps form on the surface of her skin. I grunt and leave her be as I pick the scabs on the bottom of my feet. Blood begins to drip from the newly opened pores and drips onto the white tiles.

"Can't you do that in your own damn cell?" Zeo says. "It's grossing me out!"

"Piss off," I mutter without looking up. The girl snickers a little.

Zeo shoots to his feet and advances for me, but suddenly the door whips open once more, and he stops in his tracks.

The giant in the doorway towers over him, and me, and pretty much the whole entire room. I have to crane my neck straight up to the ceiling to see this person's face, and I gasp.

Legends about the Shadow Rocket always floated around the Rocket compound, and later the prison. He's – or it's – supposedly the highest ranking grunt in the entire syndicate that isn't an admin. His kill count is off the charts, literally.

There's two problems, though. First, Shadow Rocket is standing three feet from us, and six feet up.

Secondly? Shadow Rocket's a girl.

The girl across from me looks up and screams. Zeo curses under his breath and backs away from the door as far as he can until his back bumps into the back wall.

Shadow Rocket frowns and surveys the three of us. I can feel the anger bouncing off her skin. Her eyes may as well have heat vision, because I suddenly break into a nervous sweat like I'm an ant under a magnifying glass, waiting to burst into flames.

She narrows onto the other girl and kneels down by her.

"Don't you touch her!" Zeo shouts. I throw him a "Shutuporshewillkillus!" glance.

"You hurt?" Shadow Rocket murmurs.

The girl looks up, her eyes and lips twisted in bewilderment. Then, something happens that Zeo and I are both taken aback by:

Shadow Rocket laughs. Not in lunacy, either. Pure, innocent laughter.

She looks up at us. "She's scared. By you?"

We both shake our heads. "We're all scared here, ma'am," I say.

She laughs again. "Ma'am? I'm Jager."

"Jager," Zeo repeats. "So the famed Shadow Rocket has a name, huh?"

Jager nods. "I'm human, no?"

The doors open again, cutting me short of my response. I expect another grunt to come in, but it isn't. Instead of a tattered, broken, frail body with a neon orange jumpsuit, a man with crisp white clothing strides in, with two armored guards behind him. A tall man with light blue hair stares at us with disgusted eyes that want to vomit their corneas.

"I know of you," Jager growls. "General Proton, correct?"

I can't help but sneak a glance over at Jager. Her massive frame can't make up for her awkward sociability. Can't she talk in a sentence that's more than five words?

"Maybe," Proton sneers. The two guards stand at attention near the door, while a third produces a folding chair for Proton. None for us, though.

"So you wanna tell us why you're here," Zeo says, "or why _we're_ here? What the hell is going on?"

Proton smiles a toothy grin, and in an instant I'm terrified. There's a glint in his emerald eyes that reeks dubiously. I can hear a low, snide chuckle under his lips.

"I could," says Proton. He pretends to consider Zeo's demand before laughing again. "But first, remind me why you're all here in this prison, shall we?"

The five of us – Proton, Jager, Zeo, this other girl, and I – sit in silence for a moment. We all know why we're here. But no one wants to say it. Even acknowledging it makes every ear in this prison cringe with shame.

Eventually, it's the girl that pipes up. "Because the Syndicate Alliance lost the war."

"Right you are!" Proton says, practically bursting from his seat. "You little asswipes of soldiers got me into a world of hurt with the League, and I'm the one that's gonna be stuck in here for life because _someone _wanted to surrender!"

"The point?" Jager says, crossing her arms.

Proton smiles again, and I have to turn away.

"The point," Proton continues, "is that I'll still get to live."

All of the blood drains from my face, and my breath catches in my throat. "We-We're g-g-getting executed? For real?!"

"Weeeellll. . . yes and no." Proton smiles and stands, pacing about the room.

"The hell do you mean by that? Just fucking give us the truth!" Zeo looks ready to gouge Proton's eyes out.

"See, here's the thing: you're probably gonna die. All of you."

He pauses to relish in the look of terror on everyone's faces. "But it's not execution. It'll be the same allies that stood by you during the war that'll do you in."

Jager and the girl stare at the ground with shocked, disbelieving looks. As tough as Shadow Rocket is supposed to be, she looks ready to cry. Tears already flow down the other girl's cheeks.

"But wait!" Proton cries. "One of you is gonna get the chance to live! It's a game, you see?" He looks legitimately excited to hand us our death sentences, like he's reading off his own certificate of parole or some shit. It makes me gag.

"If just one of you can outlive everybody else once you're in the arena—"

"Arena?" sputters Jager. "For sport?"

"Correct-o! The four of you have been selected for a game!"

I stand and throw my hands up. "You think killing people is a game, you sick bastard? Throwing us in with a bunch of monsters is your idea of fun?"

"Not mine, the League's! They're the ones that want to see your blood hit the ground and flood the gutters! They're the ones making money by shitting all over your goddamn grave!"

My eyes fall to the tiled floor, and I choke. "It's…it's not fair…I never killed anyone, why you gotta send me, I…I…"

Before I can collapse in paranoia, Jager shouts and runs for Proton, her hands balled into fists. She doesn't even make it halfway before a guard from the doorway fires off a tranquilizer gun. The giant falls in an instant without a whimper.

"Well, then," says Proton, looking scornfully down at Jager, "there's a chopper waiting to transport you to the initial preparation facilities. The games begin in one week."

I can't control the bursting dam of tears flowing down my cheeks. I don't deserve to die. I never fought in that war.

Apparently, that doesn't matter.

Five guards emerge from thin air to carry the limp Jager away, while three others grab at our arms to lead us down a dark, musky hallway.

In the pitch blackness, I can hear Zeo chuckling behind me. "Fate's a fickle bitch, ain't it? Well, looks like I'm going down swinging. Anyone who'd do less is a coward."

I wonder if he's right, if he'll stand a chance surviving these games with that kind of mindset.

I wonder if I can survive that way.

* * *

_Calliope Seyfert – Team Galactic_

"Aaaaaand attention!" the loudspeaker blares. The stern voice echoes across the entire hall.

Almost five thousand men and women stand shoulder to shoulder, spines fully erect. The grogginess of the early morning fades with the sharp crack of the intercom.

"Stretch!" a voice commands.

A sea of hands reaches for the ceiling, with outstretched fingers wiggling in the air. All around us, wardens take slow, deep steps around the crowd. Their heavy leather boots sound like cannons, and each footstep makes us all cringe internally. Well, except for the boy next to me.

Because he's not stretching.

"Subject 0631, respond!" the loudspeaker says. There's no response from him, but a dead, glassy gaze.

It's another few seconds before two of the wardens, massive men in League army clothing, clunker over to where I'm standing to drag him away. I shiver while my arms are still stretched high into the air, focusing on a ceiling beam to stay on balance around these goons.

The boy is carried away without a hassle, which is rare. I already instinctively braced myself for the shouts, the screams of the boy who knew what awaited him. But his eyes told me he'd stopped caring ages ago. He'd been waiting for that.

"Lower!" the same voice commands.

We all lower our arms. I've never thought about who or what commands us through our morning exercises, and I don't know why the thought crosses my mind now. Maybe it's another grunt that's doing this to us, in order to have his un-sentenced sentence reduced. Or maybe it's some other warden, who fought for the League Alliance. Maybe –

"Subject 3822! To the front!"

A chill runs down my spine, and I freeze.

I'm Subject 3822.

The clunk of the warden's boots draws closer, and I know that it's now or never. I shuffle toward the front of the hall and stand right beside the loudspeaker. My eyes fall to the ground, and the weight of ten thousand eyes staring at me makes me want to cry.

"Subject 2190!" the loudspeaker reports. I wince and hold my hands over my ears, massaging them. "To the front!"

A few seconds pass before a hunched figure saunters up next to me. I try to shoot him a glance of acknowledgement, but his blue eyes are as dead as mine.

I suck in a breath and take a look at the crowd. Most of them are staring at us, but I move past the eyes and focus on the paint-chipped walls. Now, they're all a blur of gray-ish prison shirts and messy heads of hair.

We're only five thousand strong, or maybe it's five thousand weak. We're all that's left after the war with the League, after so many of us perished for honor. I think that's what they called it, anyways. The five thousand of us here never saw any sense in the kamikaze bombings, even after being raised our whole lives to believe in that.

And so the dead shall remain dead, and the living just get to die a little slower in this prison.

The intercom snaps me out of my trance. "Subject 0461! To the front!"

"Ahh, shit!" a girl curses from the front.

"No objections!"

A warden marches over in her direction, and everyone within ten feet of the girl clears out. I hear a few whimpers and screams of fright.

"Fine! I'm going!" shouts the girl. "Don't get your man-panties in a wad!"

The girl gives me a glare before standing a few feet from me, facing the crowd like me and the boy. The uneasiness settles into my stomach, and I have to fight to keep it from coming up with my breakfast. What's this for? Being displayed to the remnants of Team Galactic usually means some kind of a punishment – flogging to the point of unconsciousness is a starting point. But they couldn't possible do that to three of us at once…could they?

"Subject 0099! To the front!"

There is no fuss this time. The boy that walks up to the front of the hall looks completely average – he isn't too tall like me, or stoic and kyphotic like the other boy. His flaming red hair stands out a little, but even then that's almost normal compared to those hideous blue wigs we had the privilege of wearing.

"Subjects 0099, 0461, 2190, and 3822!" the loudspeaker says again. Then, a pause. The crowd stares at it eagerly like a bar full of gamblers waiting on the nightly lottery numbers.

The intercom cracks back to life, and a different voice sounds, an older male this time. "Subjects, state your full name for confirmation." The voice rocks with the feebleness of an old man on his deathbed, his throat croaking with each word he speaks. The image of him in my head makes me shiver.

The boy farthest to my left speaks first. "Claus Armada," he mutters, sweeping his fiery hair back.

Then, the other boy next to him. He speaks in a mumble so low his response of "Ben Jackson" almost goes unheard.

"Calliope Seyfert," I say with faltering confidence.

The other girl sighs. "Adriana Conley."

A sudden blasting of trumpets makes all of the grunts cover their ears and curse under their collective breaths. My eardrums feel like they're pounding, and the ringing in my ears has convinced me that I've gone deaf.

What we all hear next makes me wish I had.

The old man sounds like he's lost twenty years. "Congratulations, tributes!" he says.

Wait a second. Tributes? Whatever happened to 'subject'?

He continues without a pause. "The four of you have been selected by the Pokémon League for a grand opportunity!"

There's an odd quirk in the voice that sounds vaguely familiar. It creaks with elderly wear and tear, but I've heard that enthusiastic jump in tone before – Especially during the war.

"Charon. . ." I mutter.

"You four lucky ducks have won the chance to compete in a royal competition with your fellow Syndicate Alliance lads for the chance. . ."

He drops his sentence for suspense, and the eyes that stare at the loudspeaker for a response could be enough to make the thing explode.

"For the chance," he repeats, "to have your prison sentence revoked!"

The entire hall erupts into a violent cacophony of protest. Half of these grunts turned prisoners would literally kill for the chance to be free. The gates to the building had to be reinforced three times over to keep all of the cattle in.

Next to me, Ben smirks a little and chuckles. Adriana and Claus remain stoic, but I can feel the excitement washing over them. They want to be free as badly as anyone else.

But I never should've been here in the first place. That's why I have to be the one who wins this thing.

"But wait!" Charon interrupts. The four of us falter and stare at the loudspeaker. "Victory always has its price… and for one of you to claim your glory, you must be willing to pay."

Uh oh.

A hushed silence falls over the prisoners. A few of them give a muted sigh of relief, as if suddenly they're content with being locked up in prison for life. The silence is loud enough to tear down these crumbling walls. All I can hear is the crackling static from the speaker.

"Twenty four of you, all Alliance members, will compete for the revocation of your sentence!" Charon sounds like he's about to burst with giddiness. "And for just one of you to win, you'll have to outlast all twenty three of your fellow competitors in a game of deadly survival!"

My mind can't process what he's saying. It takes me a moment to piece everything together. But Charon continues.

"The question is… will one of _you_ win it all…or die trying?"

The speaker crackles to a simmer before Charon cuts it off completely, and we're left in silence once more.

The two boys next to me stare into the ground, determined yet defeated. The one closest to me, Ben, mutters "Of course…" under his breath, with frustrated tears flooding his eyes.

I don't blame him. Of five thousand grunts in this prison, the four of us aren't exactly the lucky ones.

A twinkle of light from a grunt's silver necklace or something shines on the wall, and it makes me think of a star. Then, I laugh. I don't know why, but for this perfect moment of silence, I break it with a pitiful laugh.

Three things occur to me. First, all of the syndicates from the war – Rocket, Magma, Aqua, Plasma, and Flare – are in on this, too.

Secondly, we're probably going to die. Maybe Adriana or Claus will stand a chance, but not me.

And that's the last thing I realize: I will most certainly die in this game.

Then, booing. It begins right where the laughing ended. One by one, each grunt boos and hisses until they're just vociferous rattlesnakes behind humanoid puppets. The wardens, with assault rifles strapped to their backs and dark visors over their eyes, close in on the assembly with shouts of "Cut the shit!" and "Order!"

I look down at the linoleum floor, at my trembling feet, and feel the redness and tears flood my face. I am going to die. So are the other three grunts chosen, probably. It'll be a dark, bloody death, far away from home. Far away from peaceful.

I am going to die. And the other Galactics think that in itself is a crime.

Ben screams suddenly and runs from the front, arms flailing wildly. The crowd's booing follows him down the aisle that divided everybody into two masses. Somebody trips him, and he falls face-first into the ground. As he stands with a bloodied nose, two of the armed guards grab for his upper arms and drag him out.

Claus, Adriana and I watch with varied reactions. Adriana looks on with terror, and her muscles twitch like she wants to run up to Ben and hold him, but from the knee down she's a statue. Claus merely smirks and crosses his arms. A tongue licks his lips like he's wishing he had some popcorn.

And then there's me, shrinking down to the size of a Durant. The past five minutes have been one massive dream that I won't ever wake up from – but somehow, in the back of my mind, I know that this is no dream. It's _real_. And the idea of "deadly survival" sounds too macabre for any nightmare I could endure.

My legs shake to the point of collapse, and soon I'm kneeling, panting, watching helplessly as Ben half limps, half crawls out of the hall.

None of us see the half dozen guards approach us from the side. But when we do, they're already dragging us down the aisle. An unceremonious wedding procession without the bridal gowns or lawful wedding.

I don't know why they're booing. I don't know why I'm here in this stupid prison. I don't know why I'm going to die. But I do know that I'll die anyways.

The titanic guards drag us down a darkened hallway, one that I haven't been down before. Each footstep leads me further and further into foreign territory, and the thoughts of the home I'll never return to make me whimper.

"Shut it," mutters a guard. His rifle clangs against the armor on his back with metallic zings that hurt my ears.

Eventually it becomes too dark to see anything. Ben, way in the front, has stopped walking completely, forcing his guards to carry him by his arms and legs. Our footsteps are blind and without direction; every other step becomes a trip over a pebble or broken tile.

"Where the hell are we going?" shouts Adriana. A tug on her hair and a tiny shriek shuts her up quickly.

A blast of cool, early morning air flies through the passageway, and I shiver. The ground under me feels coarser. Concrete, maybe?

Before I can decide, my legs leave the ground and I'm thrown into the air. Adrenaline pumps through me and leaves as quickly as it came when I make impact on a hard metal surface. I hear Adriana grunt before she lands next to me.

I feel around for some kind of wall to lean on. The one I find is the same cold metal as the floor. I crawl out of the way just in time for Ben and Claus to make their grand entrance.

One of them – Ben, I think – groans.

"Fuckers," he says with a spit of blood.

An engine roars to life behind all of us, and I suddenly realize… we're in a truck.

"No," I mutter. "No, no, no, we're gonna die, they're gonna…"

They're gonna kill us. That's what they're gonna do.

"Not unless you win," Claus points out. "There's that small chance that you'll win if you don't die first."

Two pairs of wheels churning against the bumpy road usher us into silence. I still can't see anything, but somehow I don't think that's unintended.

After what seems like ages, it's Adriana that breaks the silence.

"I guess I'll just have to win, then."


End file.
